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The Wi-Fi On the Bus
theodp writes "For students who endure hundreds of hours on a school bus each year in a desert exurb of Tucson, the Wi-Fi on the bus improves the ride. Last fall, school officials mounted a $200 mobile Internet router from Autonet Mobile to bus No. 92's sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. What began as a hi-tech experiment has had an unexpected result — Wi-Fi has transformed the formerly boisterous bus rides into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared. 'Boys aren't hitting each other, girls are busy, and there's not so much jumping around,' said J. J. Johnson, the Internet Bus driver."
I doubt it.
1-to-10 says they're all on facebook.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Just like good parenting...
Stick a TV/DS/Xbox infront of your kid and they act all perfect.
Can't wait for the virtual elementary school. Just strap your kid to the gurney and put the goggles on 'em.
I know, I know. This is robably a good thing. Kids fighting on a school bus is probably not the safest thing. But on reading the article, I can't help but compare it to medicating a kid so he doesn't run around as much and so he's docile and well behaved and compliant and conforming. That's scary to me.
Maybe it's just me, but I prefer if bullies minded their own business and left the more intellectual of us alone.
The school playground is notorious for encouraging the torment of "nerds" and other social outcasts. If the bus can be turned into another safe zone, that is a good thing, in my e-book.
Right, because before putting wifi on the bus, there were so many opportunities for learning and self-achievement
If anything, making people shut the fuck up in the bus will help the introspective types that just want to be left alone so they can get some reading done. From personal experience, the most distracting thing about reading in the bus was not trying to read through the bumpiness and the constant starting and stopping. No, the most distracting thing was the guy next to me trying to get into a fight with the dude directly in front of me, reducing my personal space to whatever my eye's shortest focal length could be.
This signature serves no purpose other than to help you see which posts were made by me.
The internet is more than just studying. You can take a Wikipedia link hopping trip and see what you learn, you can read the news, you can read and post on Slashdot, and you can go on Facebook/Myspace/Twitter/email. Notice how the first three are educational but without relating to your school subjects and the last two are in fact forms of socializing.
As with many things, this is easier said than done.
When you're treated as an outcast, and no matter what you do, you're not allowed to be part of the crowd, you have no choice but retreat to the sides and spend time with the few friends you do have.
I had no interest in sports when I was a kid. I still don't, other than sometimes watching the Superbowl or World Series because they can be fun. That, combined with my intense interest in everything geeky, made me an outcast. What should I have done, pretend to like something I don't just so I could hang out with people who don't like me anyway?
I'm sorry, I'd rather have a small handful of friends I like than a large number of "friends" who I don't care for. I'd rather not have to pretend to be someone I'm not in order to get ahead. Abandoning who you are to conform to an ideal you don't care for is a heck of a lot worse than just accepting you are not part of the "in crowd" and working to live a happy life among those you *can* relate to.
So seriously, wake up, stop blaming yourself. Blame our culture for excluding those who are intellectual. Many other countries aren't like this; their scientists are celebrities. I wish we could be more like them.
I followed your link, then another link, and found the Illinois law actually says:
So based on that little snippet, it says "an unreasonable period of time" and "without regard for their safety."
And that pretty much leaves it to the judge unless those terms are defined.
I don't think it's unreasonable to leave a 12 year old alone for 3 or 4 hours after school if it's a responsible kid.
I do think it's unreasonable to leave him alone for 3 or 4 days.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
You can still be accepted even if you make it apparent that you have no interest in a particular thing that those around you like. A joke, a kindly word, tolerance - all good. Detachment, arrogance, superiority, forming cliques - yeah, well those are traits which are gonna get you in trouble in all walks of life.
There are cries of 'yeah, blame the victim' and 'blame society' here, and well, sorry, but yeah, in some cases the victim is at fault. Or the victim's parents. And sometimes, they aren't and it's just down to the bully. Or their parents.
But society? It is a sum of its parts, and the parts include the victims, the bullies and those who are neither. As a result, blanket statements like 'Blame our culture for excluding those who are intellectual' simply doesn't wash - intellectuals can do that all on their own by alienating others....